Brazil to deploy soldiers to fight against Zika virus

Jan 26, Brasilia: Brazil's health minister has said that the country would deploy 220,000 soldiers in its fight against mosquitoes spreading the Zika virus.

The soldiers will go from home to home handing out leaflets on how to avoid the spread of Zika, which has been linked to thousands of babies being born with underdeveloped brains, media reports said.

Minister Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil's Armed Forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts, according to Rio de Janeiro's O Globo newspaper.

It also quoted Castro as saying the government would distribute mosquito repellent to some 400,000 pregnant women who receive cash-transfer benefits.

And all major Brazilian dailies quoted Castro as saying the country is "badly losing the battle" against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.

"The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades, and we are badly losing the battle against the mosquito," Folha de S. Paulo newspaper quoted him as saying as a crisis group on Zika was meeting in the capital, Brasilia.